Village onthe rocks: CW shift?

Village on the rocks

by digby


Oh my God. I think hell froze over int he Village. Talking to Elijah Cummings about all this slashing of discretionary spending in the President's budget, Andrea Mitchell wondered why he would want to hit the poor but not even touch entitleme --- or defense. Cummings said that defense should be looked at and but that social security is not really a problem and that medicare and medicaid should be looked at.

Normally, at this point, the wealthy TV celebrity Mitchell would wax about shared sacrifice and talk about how we all have to give up something for the greater good, just before she suggests cutting Social Security and Medicare. But this time she had a different formulation:

Mitchell: What about means testing? Why not do some means testing and and perhaps start looking at some cutbacks on social security and medicare. But we all know that medicare and medicaid are the big ones. Why not hit those who can afford to pay?Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have said they don't need to have their Medicare paid for.

Maybe she's said that before, but I haven't heard it. And I've certainly never heard her say before that social security isn't the problem, but health care costs are. This is a significant change in her formulation of the problem.

I don't happen to be in favor of means testing the programs. I think once you take the better off out of it it will deteriorate into a "welfare" program that is far weaker than it is today. That's just how the plutocrats roll. But this idea that the rich should pay more is means that raising the cap may be taken seriously in the debate and that's all it would take to fix the SS 2040 gap.

Medicare and Medicaid are far more complicated problems that really relate to health care costs in general and are going to require serious people doing serious things to fix the problem. I'm thinking that's probably not going to happen in this congress. But if the Village can wrap their minds around the idea the Social Security isn't where the money is, then we will have made some important progress. (And Pete Peterson will have wasted all that money ...)


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